


Clean Floors, Clean Mind

by hrhrionastar



Series: The Honeyverse [25]
Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Episode: s01e22 Reckoning, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrhrionastar/pseuds/hrhrionastar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kahlan won't let her children grow up dependent on servants, but her efforts to educate them meet with mixed success.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clean Floors, Clean Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dorothydeath](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=dorothydeath).



Dara Rahl dragged the broom carelessly across the nursery floor, spreading what little dust there was around rather than sweeping it into a pile.  
  
Kahlan had ordered brooms of the appropriate height made for both her young daughters, but she now wondered whether that had been a mistake. The short brooms just looked like toys instead of tools, particularly in light of Dara and Dacey's lackadaisical approach to cleaning.  
  
Of all her three children, only seven-year-old Nicholas was making any progress on sweeping the floor. But he abandoned his task and let his broom clatter to the stone when Dara shrieked.  
  
"Bug!" she yelled, pointing.  
  
It wasn't a bug, Kahlan saw as she approached. It was a spider, hurrying across the floor in terror of Dara's broom. Kahlan stopped herself from flinching only with a supreme effort. She hated spiders.  
  
She scanned the bookshelf rapidly for a heavy volume she could use to crush the ugly creature.  
  
Unfortunately, most of the books in the nursery were either thin illustrated children's stories or scrolls for beginning wizards. What Kahlan really needed was something heavy, full of long instructive material, like _[Words of Wisdom](http://confessors.livejournal.com/177706.html): Tales for Young Confessors._  
  
A Wizard of the Third Order from Aydindril had actually given a copy of this book of improving stories to Nicholas for his last birthday. Darken had read it and refused the gift, although Kahlan thought that was putting the situation mildly. The poor wizard had been lucky to escape with his life.  
  
"I have no desire to prevent you from teaching our children the wisdom of Confessors," Darken had said. "But I will not allow that book in the same palace with Nicholas."  
  
Considering that the most important tale in _Words of Wisdom_ was the one that said all male Confessors were monsters and must be killed at birth, Kahlan had been forced to agree.  
  
Now, though, she had no book heavy enough to kill the spider with one blow. Kahlan hesitated, filled with indecision, before picking up Dara's discarded broom.  
  
She didn't take her eyes off the spider, now frozen in place, but she did check on her daughters with her peripheral vision.  
  
Dacey, who hadn't learned to speak yet, babbled happy nonsense as she waved her broom over her head, nearly hitting Dara, who had put her little sister between herself and the spider and who watched Kahlan with wide, trusting blue eyes.  
  
Kahlan stabbed the broom toward the spider, but before it could connect Nicholas rushed forward and grabbed the handle just above the bristles.  
  
"Mama, don't!" he said, sharply enough that Kahlan stepped back.  
  
At first she was afraid her son wanted to kill the spider himself, not out of necessity but because the cruel sadism of male Confessors had finally reached out to claim his soul—but in the next instant she hated herself for the suspicion.  
  
Nicholas had knelt on the floor and scooped the spider gently into his cupped palms by letting it crawl onto one hand and then carefully lifting it. He looked up at his mother defiantly.  
  
"You were going to kill her," Nicholas reproved. "But that's not fair. She's never done anything to hurt us, Mother."  
  
Now that he had the spider safely in his own custody, Nicholas reverted to calling Kahlan 'Mother' and not 'Mama,' as he believed a seven-year-old boy should.  
  
Kahlan dropped Dara's broom in order to put her hands on her hips and glare at her eldest child. "It's a spider, Nicholas!" she said. "And what if it's poisonous?" Behind Kahlan, Dara gasped.  
  
Kahlan couldn't see either of her daughters, but with her keen ears and the eyes any good mother developed in the back of her head, she sensed that Dacey was no longer sitting on the floor. Her baby-babbling had changed in tone; now she sounded excited, although probably not about the spider. Kahlan turned.  
  
Dacey sat astride the small broom, which ran parallel with the floor. Her feet dangled several shocking inches above the stone. She was laughing.  
  
Before Kahlan could rescue her levitating daughter or her spider-befriending son, the door opened.  
  
Kahlan's heart leapt at the welcome sight of her husband. He'd remembered!  
  
A wise Confessor, Kahlan had been taught, was equally at home in a cottage or a palace. That meant knowing how to do 'servant's work' and _that_ meant sweeping.  
  
She still hadn't expected Darken to join her in making the children clean the nursery, though.  
  
But here her husband was, dressed in the least ornate set of red vest and robes he owned, and currently being mobbed by the children.  
  
Dara demanded to be picked up while Nicholas brandished the spider in his cupped hands at his father and Dacey flew higher on her broom.  
  
The youngest got Darken's attention first; he swept Dacey out of the air—the broom fell to the floor as soon as she stopped concentrating on keeping it aloft—and held her securely against his shoulder, rebuking her in his rich voice, like warm honey on Kahlan's ears:  
  
"If you must fly, Dacey, you will learn to heal your inevitable broken bones first."  
  
Dacey was too young to understand, of course, but Kahlan noticed that her little girl appeared to have forgotten levitation entirely. Gravity might be a mere guideline, but it was clear that his children honored Lord Rahl's word above all.  
  
"Father, look!" Nicholas held out his hands, the spider scurrying for escape between his palms. "Mother wanted to kill her, but that's not right, is it? She's harmless. Can I keep her?"  
  
Darken and Kahlan exchanged a look over the children's heads. Darken looked as if he were holding back laughter; Kahlan hoped her own eyes conveyed her deep annoyance.  
  
"Ewww!" said Dara, hiding halfway behind Darken to get away from the spider and sticking her tongue out at Nicholas.  
  
"A spider is not an appropriate pet," Darken said.  
  
And, Kahlan saw, he had the sense to stop there—she would have tried explaining all the reasons she didn't want a spider in the nursery, and Nicholas would just see that as an opening to negotiation.  
  
"But Father," Nicholas wheedled, "you can't let Mother kill her! She's going to be a mama-spider, look!"  
  
Kahlan stepped closer in order to verify this statement for herself. Dara slipped past her as she and Darken scrutinized the spider and saw the telltale egg sack.  
  
Baby spiders. Baby spiders in the nursery. Baby spiders all over the palace.  
  
One might think that a powerful wizard like Darken Rahl could cast a spell to keep vermin out, but probably not even magic would make Nicholas give up his new potential pet.  
  
Kahlan put a hand to her forehead and massaged the bridge of her nose. As disasters went, it was hardly the worst she'd ever contemplated—or lived through. She was horrified anyway.  
  
"Spiders don't belong inside," Darken pointed out. "But she and the babies may live in the garden."  
  
Nicholas looked somewhat mollified, and Darken opened the door to give the Mord'Sith on guard her orders before his son could beg for yet more consideration for the spider.  
  
The Mord'Sith was young and blond and obviously infatuated with Lord Rahl, so Kahlan was quite pleased at her shock and horror at being ordered to take the prince's spider to the garden and let it go.  
  
Nicholas tipped the creature into the Mord'Sith's gloved hands, asking 'Mistress Gilly' to be careful as confidently as if he couldn't imagine that anyone could fail to be delighted at the honor of carrying a spider down several flights of stairs and through long corridors and outside the hugely imposing doors to weave its webs among the flowers.  
"I don't want spiders all over the garden," Kahlan protested quietly, under cover of Nicholas's chatter.  
  
She'd almost said 'my garden,' Kahlan realized. The garden wasn't hers, of course; nothing in the People's Palace could ever belong to the Mother Confessor, could it?  
  
Except that she lived here with her husband and her children. So something about this palace was hers—was theirs: their family.  
  
Darken put his arm around her waist, Dacey still cradled against his shoulder between them. Being so close, the little girl reached for the jewels braided into her mother's hair, and Kahlan took her hand before Dacey could undo her coiffure.  
  
"Don't worry," Darken said. "The birds will eat most of the spiders. But don't tell Nicholas."  
  
"As if I—" Kahlan began in only partially mock outrage, but she stopped herself when Nicholas came back inside.  
  
"I suppose Garie wouldn't have liked it if I'd kept the lady spider," Nicholas sighed. "Do you think she'll be happy in the garden?"  
  
"Yes," Kahlan said firmly, not looking at Darken. She caught Nicholas by the shoulders and knelt to kiss his forehead, a quick apology for not letting him keep the spider as a pet.  
  
Garie, his cat, was one thing. A spider was another. She did wonder what he would've named it, though.  
  
Kahlan sat down in her favorite armchair by the fireplace and watched Dara set the three children's brooms in a triangle on the floor, all thought of cleaning gone.  
  
She couldn't imagine Darken sweeping, anyway. She'd seen him clean dishes by magic, but the image of him with a broom just made her think of flying, which made her think of watching him swoop out of the sky, changing from a bird to a man on the dark wings of sorcery.  
  
She chose to remember Dacey levitating instead.  
  
Darken transferred Dacey to Kahlan's lap and stood behind her to undo her jeweled coiffure. She shut her eyes for a moment, simply enjoying the feel of his hands in her hair.  
  
"Just think," Darken said. "Our daughter learned to fly before she could walk." _Aren't you proud?_ He didn't ask the question aloud, but Kahlan heard it anyway.  
  
Nicholas stood in the window seat, pressing hands and nose to the glass as he watched the sunset. Kahlan was about to tell him to get down from there before he broke the window and fell to the distant ground, but just at that moment Dara shrieked again.  
  
"Bug!" she said, pointing to a black spot in the center of the floor.  
  
Dacey squirmed for freedom so she could go see; Kahlan kept her little girl securely in her arms and didn't get up. Let Darken perform whatever insect slaying might be required.  
  
Nicholas scrambled to his father's side as Darken strode forward to deal with Dara's find. Kahlan hoped he hadn't found another creature to champion.  
  
But before Nicholas could demand that this insect be treated with the same care as the spider, Darken had picked it up, crossed to the window and flung it open, and tossed the insect out into the warm evening air. Kahlan saw a tiny dot move upward on the wind, and heard the faint buzz of wings as the creature departed the nursery and, with any luck, their lives.  
  
Nicholas stood on the window seat again, Darken beside him. Kahlan rose too, still carrying Dacey, and joined them at the window. Dara squirmed up between Kahlan's skirts and Darken's robes to stand on the window seat too. Darken smoothed his daughter's pale hair and she leaned into him.  
  
Together, the Rahl family watched the orange and pink streaks of the setting sun.  
  
Kahlan felt peace settling over her soul. Yes, she answered her husband's question in her thoughts. _I am proud of Dacey. I am proud of us all._


End file.
